Mr. Robot: is an American drama–thriller television series created by Sam Esmail. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybrersecurity engineer and hacker who suffers from social anxiety disorder social and clinical depression. Alderson is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as “Mr. Robot”, played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists. The group aims to cancel all debts by attacking the large corporation E Corp. The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015, and was renewed for a second season before the first season premiered on USA Network on June 24, 2015. Mr. Robot has received critical acclaim and has been nominated for multiple awards, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. [from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

The series follows Elliot Alderson, a young man living in New York City, who works at the cybersecurity company Allsafe as a security engineer. Constantly struggling with social anxiety disorder and clinical depression, Elliot’s thought process seems heavily influenced by paranoia and delusion. He connects to people by hacking them, which often leads him to act as a cyber-vigilante. He is recruited by a mysterious insurrectionary anarchist known as Mr. Robot, and joins his team of hacktivists known as fsociety. One of their missions is to cancel all debts by taking down one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp (which Elliot perceives as Evil Corp), which also happens to be Allsafe’s biggest client. [from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

Wowwowwowwowwowwow etc. Mr. Robot won all these awards at the Golden Globes so I decided to download it. It’s about computer hacking and is so dark, twisty, and smart I’m surprised anyone watches it let alone gives it awards. Wow. CINEMABLEND.COM says; ‘It’s damn near perfect!’ I agree. It is unlike any TV show I’ve ever seen and trust me, I’ve seen many. Because it is so critical of mainstream society, I really am surprised that the mainstream award-shows give this show acclaim.

Our lead character [Rami Malek as Elliot] is delusional and because the world we see is filtered through his sensibility we are left wondering what’s real. One’s expectations for accurate representation have to be left at the door. You just have to go with it and if you want any conventional explanation, that isn’t going to happen. Interview confirms, ‘Elliot Alderson is an unreliable narrator—a paranoid, loner hacker who suffers from hallucinations and is addicted to morphine—but he is our only option when it comes to Mr. Robot. Everything we see, everything we are told comes from Elliot, and conspiracy theories about what is and isn’t real are abundant. ‘

The acting is phenomenal. Rami Malek is the perfect choice for Elliot. Physically he looks frail and emotionally he plays fragility with brilliance. He has a very complex character: brilliant, tortured, addicted to morphine, angry at the world… Interview says, ‘Malek’s performance gives Elliot depth; he isn’t just a series of quirks and tics, an amalgamation of traits that sit somewhere on the autism spectrum. Elliot is aware that he is hovering somewhere near the edge, and wants desperately to be normal. ‘

Christian Slater plays Mr. Robot and already has weird undertones. As a leader of a fringe, anarchist hacking group he is more than believable. Slater tells Rolling Stone“I just want to keep taking chances, I want to do things that scare the hell out of me.”

Portia Doubleday plays Angela and is way more than Elliot’s love-interest. She is smart, balsy and loyal. I imagine that playing a complex female character is quite rewarding and is very rare. She tells The Hollywood Reporter, “There’s so much that goes on, especially with Angela, because I think she that she’s consistently transitioning. Even from the pilot until the fifth episode, so much changes.” Majorly.

The aesthetic is gritty, grimy, grungy, dirty and most colours are muted. The word ‘consistency’ keeps coming to my mind. There is a seamless quality between the aesthetic and story. The disorder of Elliot’s mind is reflected in the world of the story. I did some research and found this: Voxsays, ‘Its visual aesthetic is almost deliberately confrontational and in your face… But that aesthetic also gives the show an overriding feeling of coherence and thematic unity that exists in few brand new shows.’ I was right!

On Metacritic, Neverminding says;it’s hard to believe this is a USA show. The cinematography and production quality are top notch. The subject matter might not be accessible to everyone, but for those of us who have been waiting for a show centered around modern technology without it falling into laughable “for dummies” level dialogue, it’s pretty much perfect.

It’s one thing to give society the middle finger and another to do it in such an intelligent way. The anarchy in this film uses technology against itself and never dumbs down. It doesn’t take its audience as morons – it does not pander or explain anything. Corporate greed is taken to task. Buying into popular belief structures is also criticized and while Elliot may be crazy, the world we live in seems crazier.

Hacking people is Elliot’s way to get to know them. Hacking in this case is like the show Twin Peaks in that we see what’s underneath the surface stuff. Often Elliot discovers that which is ugly and disturbing but it is real and honest, you know? Wired says; There are many types of hackers, and many motivations for hacking. But one of the things Mr. Robot really nails is the portrayal of a certain type of hacker who hacks to make sense of the world and connect to it.

Hacking is his primary mechanism for controlling a world that he feels powerless to control and for making connections in a world in which he feels disconnected. “What do normal people do when they get sad? They reach out to friends or family,” he says as he huddles in his apartment crying. “That’s not an option [for me].”

Mental anguish and drug addiction is linked to childhood trauma here. Again it may be harsh and ugly but it is real. Needless to say this is not a happy, shiny or veiled world. It is painful – the complete opposite of escapism. If TV is your drug or your escape from the world you will not like this show – guaranteed.

Thefix.comsays; While the show has definite Fight Club undertones (which is one of the reasons I love it), it does manage to depict a more realistic version of a paranoid schizophrenic than the 1999 cult classic. In Fight Club, the character with schizophrenia is depicted as an aggressor, when in real life, schizophrenia can have an almost dulling effect on the individual.

Rollingstone notes that Sam Esmail, who wrote and directed the 2014 sci-fi romance Comet, created Mr. Robot and no one in the cast knows exactly where they are going to take this story.

Esmail warns that the upcoming installment of the show will be darker. He tells Entertainment Weekly that the upcoming season will focus on Elliot’s backstory and give an insight into why he formed fsociety.

I cannot stress enough to you, how phenomenal this television show is. If you have not seen Mr. Robot – do.

You can see the whole of the first season on Amazon Prime Video.

Mr. Robot – Some Awards

Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama

Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television

It’s Monday night. I’m in the living room. My boyfriend is in the bedroom. I’m wearing my sexy black teddy, mules with gentle pink feathers dangle from my perfectly pedicured feet, my lips are swathed in a lipstick called Fatal Femme. It’s a holy time and I want to be ready. My fireplace roars. My popcorn is poised for the new season of Queer As Folk. Like many women across the country who watch the show – fifty-two percent according to the Nielsen ratings in 2001, and growing – I’m addicted. I am not alone.

“At the beginning it really surprised me,” says Queer As Folk producer Sheila Hockin. “All of us working on the show, Showtime in the States and Showcase in Canada , expected to have predominantly a gay male audience.” Because most of the lead characters are male, the assumption was that “the group of people portrayed would likely be the people watching the show. It startled us in the beginning and at first we thought that maybe we’re drawing gay women.” After reviewing fan mail and Web sites about the show they realized it was a lot of straight women.

When openly-gay actor Robert Grant, who plays Michael Novotny’s (Hal Sparks) HIV+ lover Ben, appeared on The Mike Bullard Show, he noted that the women “like the cute guys. They relate to the stories or whatnot, but here’s the key… I found out that the truth is, women love to watch two guys getting it on! I was really surprised by this… it’s always, guys like to watch two women… socialization-wise.” Hot male bodies in action are a big part of the draw. Surprise! We could stop right there if that was all there was to the show’s fascination for women – there’s a hell of a lot more action happening in gay porn that could satisfy a Betty’s need to see Studly getting it on with Dudly.

So what exactly are women getting all wet over? What kinds of identifications are women hooking into? Women are creating their own gender performances in fantasy and play in ways that make gender go nuclear. Straight women watching Queer as Folk might be the ultimate Queer quotient. Femininity and masculinity, associated with “appropriate” sexual identification and desire, is suddenly attached to culturally inappropriate male and female bodies. There is an explosion of identification: girls desiring straight boys playing gay boys. Girls wanting to be a feminine boy kissing a butch boy. Girls wanting to be taken by or wanting to take a gay/straight boy. Girls romanticizing gay desire and freedom of sexual play.

What we are experiencing now is Gender Meltdown.

Why women find QAF appealing finds part of its answer in Hockin’s musing that “women find it erotic and sensual to watch.” Queer representations, however, transform the relationship the straight female audience has with the erotic and sensual, triggering new kinds of identifications because women need to take a leap not usually necessary in traditional (straight) television dramas or comedies.

Eroticism and sensuality are intertwined with romantic situations and dramas housed in queer cloth. Still, women are wrapped up in it. “Women are drawn to the working out of romantic relationships,” says Hockin. “And how people negotiate relationships. The power-plays. There are Ethan-Justin fan groups…a whole group of people on the Web called BJshippers – Brian-Justin Worshippers. People are so heavily invested in that relationship. [The executive producers] Ron [Cowen] and Dan [Lipman] think of Brian and Justin as one of the great Romantic couples.”

Hal Sparks plays the sweet and dysfunctional-enough-to-be-believed Michael Novotny, Brian Kinney’s (Gale Harold) best friend. I ask him what aspects of his character might appeal to women. He replies: “His sweetness. His vulnerability and his habit of binge eating comfort food when he gets upset.”

In a more serious vein, he feels there are common romantic identifications. “This is the first time many women have seen what they go through with their husbands and boyfriends portrayed honestly on screen. Most straight relationships on TV are told in an incomplete, male-focused way.” Sparks says that women relate “with a combination of deep rooted teary-eyed understanding and throw popcorn at the screen in frustration. I think we all can relate to unrequited love in some way.”

For straight women, buying into the show’s romance and eroticism is more complex – it is something of an identity juggling act. Keeping all the balls up in the air becomes especially convoluted in the worship of the actors. After all, to fall for one of the boys on QAF is often to fall for a straight boy playing a gay boy. Sparks has been upfront about being straight: “A very small section of the fan base gets angry every time I say I’m straight because they are under the impression that I ask to be asked so that I can say, ‘I’m straight, thanks for asking – here’s 10 bucks,’ and distance myself from the show. In my heart I know this criticism comes from people who have been severely marginalized by our culture and fear it will get worse.”

You may as well be desiring Matt Damon for all the chance you actually have of seeing Michael or Brian waltz through your door at the end of the day. But there is the illusion of possibility that is tempting beyond the illusion. And obviously, you might be falling for a gay boy too. In any case, the so-called secure straight identities actors have in distinguishing themselves from their characters gets blurred. They have kissed and often been naked with members of the same sex, after all. In character or not. Juggling the object-of-desire’s ambiguous sexuality is part of the straight fan’s own gender performance. The object she desires says something about her own sexual play and sexual orientation.

The show brings role-playing to the surface. Femininity is not necessarily female and masculinity male. On QAF there are traditional roles taken on by both sexes. Females, such as Melanie Marcus (Michelle Clunie) take on a traditionally masculine role as the provider for the family and it could be said that Justin, played by openly-gay Randy Harrison, takes on the femme role to Brian’s über-butch. Gale Harold plays a gay man objectifying men in the way that some men have historically objectified women. Brian’s total bad-boy hotness is reminiscent of the womanizer seen on soaps from suds past, collapsing a traditional (straight) male archetype with a butch gay one. Hal Sparks notes, “Ironically, even though the relationships on the show are predominately male-male, since one person must take on the feminine role, women get to see their struggle played out more fully.” Women might find a certain reflection of themselves in a gay ‘feminine-role-playing’ man on TV. Or a butch one.

The toss-up of conventional roles creates a grab bag of lust opportunity and gender play. Sheila Hockin elaborates: “A lot of straight women wildly romanticize Brian Kinney. There is some commentary on the Web, straight women talking about sexual fantasies to do with the characters, where they want to be a guy Brian kisses. They don’t want to be a woman. It all gets very gender-bending.” Women are not just taking a peek as themselves, replacing characters on the screen (Justin, for example) with their pretty, pouty faces, they’re also masquerading as gay males. Gender Meltdown.

With all the hype about women getting turned on by the gaze, straight women are also watching women getting it on. And this is something we don’t usually hear about. How do straight women relate to the lesbians on the show? Exit the Professor, enter Ginger and Mary-Ann.

The lovely Michelle Clunie plays Melanie Marcus, the somewhat butchier partner to Thea Gills’s Lindsay Peterson. Speaking from “my own perspective as a straight woman,” Clunie describes what turned her on to the show. “Before this I never saw two women making love in real life or in the theatre or in a porno or anywhere. I know the first time I saw the pilot, I thought ‘wow that’s kind of hot, I never thought about that before.’ I think a lot of straight women are re-thinking ménages-à-trois. I mean, there has always been this fantasy of two women for guys. This puts the shoe on the other foot.” She goes further by saying, “In a way because there is so much male nudity on the show and so much male sex on the show, it’s almost like we’re objectifying men.”

Women are also re-evaluating the ménages-à-trois players. “I’ve even heard women say ‘wow, I wonder what it would be like to be with two men?’” says Clunie. “One boyfriend of a girl came to this party and he said something like ‘do you want me to kiss a guy?’ because the girl watched Queer As Folk and she was really into the guy-guy thing. I think that it’s opening up a whole sexual layer to explore. And I think that’s wonderful and great and why not?” The exploration of sexual layers between ‘straight’ couples takes the term to task… It’s almost as though a new language needs to be created to accommodate the play involved in watching the show.

While the straight female fan hoopla is intriguing, there have been concerns on the fan chat-boards. One gay fan feels that the straight fans are given more credibility, that it means more to the show that there are female viewers, “sorta like AIDS didn’t mean anything until straights were affected…can’t exactly explain why this hits me so oddly, but it does.” Another fan worries the show might change to attract straight fans: “It may be cable but it’s still commercial American television and that is all about numbers, ratings and demographics.”

I asked Hal Sparks and Melanie Clunie if their performances were affected by the knowledge that they had a huge het female fan base and they both replied in the negative. Clunie’s primary goal was, “to be true to my character.” Sparks says, “My only real focus is on interpreting the script as close to the writer’s intention as I can. The British show had a big female fan base with no help from me. So, I just try to stay out of the way. Let Michael live without my ego getting involved at all.”

Producer Sheila Hockin is adamant that the writers have only been concerned with depicting the characters from their own gay, cultural perspective and that the story would not shift to accommodate a straight female audience. Rather the stories would grow, like the characters, from clubbing to different growth-oriented gay priorities and concerns. “The show has never been written for straight women,” says Hockin.

So what does this mean?

It isn’t surprising to find women subtextually replacing Justin with themselves or with an altered gay male version of self. That is what queers have been doing for decades, watching TV shows that didn’t represent their desire. What gay man hasn’t been Scarlett to Rhett or J. Lo to Ben?

In fact, straight women might be the ultimate Queer quotient when it comes to watching Queer as Folk by inhabiting that twilight-zone, the marginal, the Other – qualities of the Queer that are seemingly taking a lovey-dovey hiatus from the show within a gay context irrespective of a straight female fan base.

Women now have fantasy access to back rooms they could never get into before. The straight female fans might be fags in mental drag; they might be Queer as folk.

• Romy Shiller is a pop culture critic and holds a PhD in Drama and Film. Her academic areas of concentration include gender performance, camp and critical thought.

Books are available online. She lives in Montreal where she continues her writing.

About: [from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia] Trainwreck is a 2015 American romantic comedy film directed by Judd Apatow and written by Amy Schumer. The film stars Schumer and Bill Hader along with an ensemble cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Vanessa Bayer, John Cena and LeBron James.

Plot: Gordon Townsend [Colin Quinn] is telling his two young daughters Amy (Devin Fabry) and Kim (Carly Oudin) that he and their mother are divorcing because monogamy isn’t realistic. Twenty-three years later, Amy [Amy Schumer] is a party girl who drinks too much, smokes weed and sleeps around while dating a gym-addict named Steven [John Cena]

Instead of Titanic you get Trainwreck. The film uses the comparison metaphorically and then throws it away in the recycling bin. I adore that this film opens on a ferry and not a ship. I adore that Schumer recreates Winslet’s “I’m flying” pose. I adore that our lead female reinvents herself and the romantic comedy genre. In a voice-over she says that she hopes the romantic montage is over soon and that it ends like Jonestown [suicide]. Judd Apatow’s involvement means that the tone will be irreverent – and it is.

Judd Apatow tells Varietythat he discovered Amy Schumer on the Howard Stern show: I come at everything as a fan. I’m just like a kid who sat in his room and watched Merv Griffin all day long. So every once in a while I’ll hear something and say, “That’s my favorite comedian.”

I was in my car. I was not that familiar with Amy Schumer’s standup. She was talking to Howard Stern, and she was so engaging. She was talking about her dad having MS and what her relationship is like with him. It was very dark and sad, but also very sweet and hilarious and she clearly adores him. I thought, “This is a very unique personality and I’d like to see these stories in movies.”

So, Schumer plays a woman who has many one-night stands and is scared of intimacy. She meets a sports-doctor on a writing assignment and falls in love. She is very unconventional which does make this a unique rom-com.

I think that she resonates with many men and women. Love and intimacy are not perfect things. They’re far from a romantic montage and even if there is a desire for perfection there are, most often, issues to deal with.

Schumer has a difficult time just ‘trusting’ and most of her relationships follow her father’s older warning that ‘monogamy is unrealistic.’ Her initial love-interest played by John Cena leaves her cold and not emotionally attached. She is not monogamous and has many one-night stands. He learns of this and claims that he wanted to marry her. Her response to his distress is that she is too ‘high’ for this conversation. Her ‘reality’ is being high or absent from important moments. She does not live in the present in a way that involves her at all.

When she meets a man who calls after sex she assumes he is insane. He dashes her expectations of casual encounters. This might not be a ‘casual encounter’ after all.

Schumer takes her undeniable talents to the big screen tossing aside rom-com conventions with a timely and outrageously funny portrait of an unapologetically independent career woman whose hard-partying personal life is turned upside down when she meets Mr. Might-Be-Right. Directed and produced by comedy guru Judd Apatow (Bridesmaids, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, “Girls”), Trainwreck UNRATED arrives on Blu-ray & DVD with even more hysterical moments, including deleted scenes, gag reel, line-o-rama & more!

I think that part of my fascination with this film is the tension between Schumer’s obvious dislike of the rom-com genre and her performance in a rom-com. She is contextualized but not constrained by the genre. Huh.

Also brilliant is a black and white film within this film. “The Dogwalker” starring Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei is playing at a movie theatre Schumer attends. It is hysterical, really.

The thing is, the film in theatres was more politically correct and less ‘offensive’ but well edited. The DVD may be closer to the script, but it is less good than the film was in theatres. It was too long and did feel like some stuff needed to be cut. I am truly sorry to say this.

You want to get the balance right. I couldn’t be funny, in the way that I am on SNL. You just can’t be that funny, in this movie. I have to see a side in her that she doesn’t even see in herself. I’m in love with her, and I’m accepting of her, in some ways, and not accepting in others. There’s this balance that you have to have. It’s very easy to try to put in a lot of jokes, but it would have ruined the relationship. I feel like, even on the set, Judd probably thought I was going to be funnier. He was like, “Don’t you want to try something?” and I was like, “No, I’m good with just that.”

Hader’s efforts of being realistic pay off. He is a good foil to his wacky love-interest. His earnestness lends credibility to her putting ‘trust’ in him. We do want them to end up together and we root for her to overcome her issues because he is worthy.

Hader is excellent and Schumer witty. My nit picking about certain flaws should not keep you away from the DVD.

About: [from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia] Spyis a 2015 American action comedy film written and directed by Paul Feig. Starring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, and Jude Law, the film follows the transformation of desk-bound CIA analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy) into a field agent who attempts to foil the black market sale of a suitcase nuke.

Distributed by 20th Century and produced by Feigo Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment, the film was theatrically released on June 5, 2015. Upon release, the film received critical acclaim and has grossed over $236 million worldwide.

Plot: Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a desk-bound CIA analyst guiding her partner Agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) on a mission to Varna from a CIA office in the Washington, D.C. area. Fine accidentally kills Tihomir Boyanov without first finding a suitcase nuke whose location is known only to Boyanov. Meanwhile, the agency learns that Boyanov’s daughter Rayna (Rose Byrne) might know the location of her father’s device, so they send Fine to infiltrate her home. However, Rayna shoots Fine dead while Susan watches online. Rayna knows the identities of all the agency’s top agents, including Fine and Rick Ford (Jason Statham). Susan, who is unknown to Rayna, volunteers to become a field agent, and her boss, Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney), agrees. Ford quits in disgust over Susan being chosen for the assignment.

I kind of can’t believe that I didn’t review this film when it came out in theatres. It is on DVD now so I saw it again. Yup. It’s really good. A send-up of the Bond flicks it centres on a woman who a) doesn’t fit the Bond-girl stereotype or spy b) is the epitome of the anti-spy. Even Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) has expectations… she has a spy-name ready ‘in case.’ They do not let her use it. As The Daily Mail notes; She would like a sexy alias, but having been handed a distressingly prosaic one — Carol Jenkins — she is sent to Paris, then Rome and Budapest, where she proves herself unexpectedly adept at grappling with nasty heavies at the tops of high buildings.

Susan Cooper gets a generic name like her ‘actual’ name and her cool spy-gadgets are concealed in hemorrhoid wipes, stool softener and a rape whistle. Her spy-watch has a photo-face of the film Beaches. The film capitalizes on the single, big woman stereotype and then subverts it. Wow.

Her disguises are unglamorous and she is given a short, curled, un-sleek, grey wig to wear. Her second disguise is that of a cat-lady who has pictures of her TEN cats. When she goes ‘rogue’ she dyes her natural hair darker and wears a glamorous black dress. As a plus-sized woman this is significant. She is reframing beauty and glamour for bigger women in general, not just in film.

Susan Cooper’s ‘real’ life mirrors her dowdy disguises. Bradley Fine (Jude Law) gives her a diamond ring box that has a cupcake pendant and not her obvious hope for a ring. He asks her to pick up his dry-cleaning and to fire his gardener.

Writer/Director Paul Feig says in The Mary Sue “I’m a fan of spy movies, I’m a fan of most of the James Bond movies and Bourne movies. But I think Casino Royale was the biggest influence on me, because it was when James Bond had come back from being silly and over-gadgetry. Bond got pretty crazy for many years, starting with Roger Moore, and those movies are super fun to watch, but I’m a fan of the original books that Fleming wrote, and Bond was a pretty dark character. It wasn’t about the gadgets; it was about him living by his wits.

As The Daily Mail says, this film is sometimes an uproarious, American-flavoured pastiche of the James Bond films, Spy opens with a deliciously daft pre-credits sequence in which CIA super-agent Bradley Fine, confronting a terrorist over the location of a hidden nuclear bomb, loses control of his trigger finger following a sudden onset of hay fever.

Melissa McCarthy acquired movie star fame as the overweight sidekick in the 2011 hit Bridesmaids, which was followed up by Identity Thief and The Heat.

She tells the Daily Mail that to play a CIA field agent in Spy, Melissa McCarthy had to exercise more than her comedy. The 44-year-old actress told Live With Kelly and Michael that she also had to put in some hard hours at the gym.

‘I studied martial arts for two months,’ the Gilmore Girls vet said. ‘Turns out I like doing stunts.’

Susan Cooper guides the Jude Law character initially. The Daily Mail says that through his earpiece, and sophisticated satellite technology, she can guide Fine through most perilous situations. But when he meets his match in the chilly but exquisite form of Bulgarian arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), conspiring in the inevitable plot to hold the world to ransom, it is Cooper herself who must replace him in the field.

He is so Bond. The Guardian notes that while he’s never had the chance to actually play James Bond, despite rumours that he’s been in the running, Jude Law’s turn in Spy shows that he would make a convincingly slick secret agent.

It’s a smallish role for the actor, who has been enjoying a bit of a comeback of late with roles in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Dom Hemingway and Black Sea, all suggesting he’s breaking free of his pretty–boy shackles and seeking a more varied set of roles.

Rather like the recent Kingsman: The Secret Service, Paul Feig’s highly entertaining film derives much of its comedy from a combination of everyday life, with its mundane issues and challenges, and the glamorous, dangerous world of international espionage. Thus, a secret agent who needs his antihistamines, and a CIA control room in Virginia afflicted with a serious pest-control problem.

Okay. I want to be upfront about this. I have a problem with fairytales, especially Beauty and the Beast. I also take issue with certain representations of high school in film. I find representations of youth that are idealized, unbelievable usually. Maybe another reviewer won’t filter this film through the same sieve.

Plot: A modern-day take on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale where a New York teen is transformed into a hideous monster in order to find true love.

It’s nice for guys in fairytales because they can be ugly but the girl has to be a beauty. Imagine if the Vanessa Hudgens character in this film was ‘ugly’. I don’t think so. (and if you think that Fiona in Shrek breaks this mold think again.) In my articleOgre-Drag I say, “Women are often with “less desirable” partners, especially in fairytales. Women are supposed to be good looking. Take Beauty and the Beast, for example. A beautiful woman can be with a beast. She cannot be the beast if he is good looking.”

I’m all for recognizing beauty on the inside but usual depictions of this are flawed (The transformative television show Glee challenges conventional representation). See, if the film simply focused on inner beauty that would be great but gender is at issue here. Not only that, but Vanessa Hudgens resonates with the High School Musical films where teenagers are expected to look a certain way – oh, don’t get me started.

In my book You Never Know: A Memoir I say; “Difference is something that most people avoid. Fitting in becomes a goal. Personally, I think difference is valuable. It is the “same” that irks me. Variation is not the same as inconsistency. One can be incredibly multi-tonal and consistent.” (Shiller, p. 23.)

So, Vanessa Hudgens’ character Lindy says that she prefers substance over style but she doesn’t do the cursing, a witch does. There is a tradition here. “Michelle Pfeiffer plays the wicked, ugly witch in Stardust on a quest for beauty and eternal youth.” I do not think that Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen) is ugly but Kyle does. So, again, the “ugly” person does the apparently bad thing.

In the traditional fairytale Belle (means ‘beauty’ in French) satisfies her father’s dept by willingly living in a palace governed by a beast. At the end of the story her absence almost kills the beast and she cries upon returning. Realizing that she loves him her tears transform him into a handsome prince. She agrees to marry him.

In this film, Kyle Kingsbury is rich, handsome, and popular. He runs for the president of his high school ’green’ committee but he has no interest in the environment – it will just look good on his transcript. His slogan is ‘embrace the suck’. He says that how you look is proportional to how you are treated. He says that it sucks to be ugly. Kyle is ugly on the inside.

As a mean joke he asks this girl Kendra to a dance he already has a date for. Kendra reveals herself to be a witch and punishes him for his cruelty by condemning him to live as a beast. A girl, Lindy, he met before his transformation falls in love with the “beast.”

Two things interfered with my expectations. First, I thought that the “beast” was hot, and actually better looking than before. See preppy, clean-cut boys are not my thing. I dated someone for two years that looked very much like the beast in this film. Secondly, I identified with the beast in terms of transformation. Now each of these things is worthy of an article but I’ll stay on track – I think.

Okay, back to the first…a good-looking beast. In high-school, if you wear a long black coat, like Neo in The Matrix, you probably have a gun and want to shoot people. If you are different in any way you are shunned. In many ways this film reinforces that it is better to be the ‘same’ – not fringe. I wanted the beast to stay as-is but that’s not the fairytale. As in Titanic we know what to expect. The beast goes back to being the pretty-boy. But with a heart to match – he is nice now.

This Beauty and Beast theme is repeated a lot in films in different ways for example, in Titanic it is rich vs. poor. In Tootsie it is the real vs. fake. In City of Angels it is human vs angel. etc. It might seem harsh and a woman I saw the film with asked me ‘if I could JUST watch a movie’. I guess that critical analysis will always be a part of it. I cannot put myself on hold.

It is hard for me to see this film in a different light. I looked to reviews and found the following: “The film tries desperately to be an homage to the fairytales that came before it. In many ways, it succeeds, but this off-putting hybrid of accepting society, yet deforming it with Aesop Fable logic just doesn’t work. The characters are like viruses attacking an immune system, and as virtuously as the white blood cells fight them off, something never quite feels right.”

There seems to be a problem with this movie. If you like fairytales you still might have an issue with this film. If you idealize high school it follows a prescription but…

Romy Shiller is a pop culture critic and holds a PhD in Drama from the University of Toronto. Her academic areas of concentration include film, gender performance, camp and critical thought. She lives in Montreal where she continues her writing. All books are available online

ABOUT: Mad Max: Fury Road is a 2015 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller, and the fourth film of Miller’s Mad Max franchise. The first film of the franchise in 30 years, Fury Road stars Tom Hardy as ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky, who replaces Mel Gibson in the title role, along with Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and Hugh Keayes-Byrne.

The film is set in a future desert wasteland where gasoline and water are scarce commodities, with Max (Hardy) joining forces with Imperator Furiosa (Theron) to flee from cult leader Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne) and his army in an armoured tanker truck, which leads to a lengthy road battle. The film had its world premiere on 7 May 2015 at the TCL Chinese Theatre. It began wide theatrical release on 14 May 2015, including an out-of-competition screening at the 68th Cannes Film Festival. Critics have praised the film for its acting, screenplay, action sequences, stunts, and direction.

PLOT: Set in the future after a nuclear war, the world is a desert wasteland and civilization has collapsed. Max, a survivor, is captured by the War Boys, the army of tyrannical cult leader Immortal Joe. Designated a universal blood donor, Max is imprisoned and used as a “blood bag” for the sick War Boy Nux. Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa drives her heavily-armored War Rig to collect gasoline. When Furiosa begins driving off route, Joe realizes that his five wives – women specially selected for breeding – are gone. Joe leads his entire army in pursuit of Furiosa, calling on the aid of nearby Gas Town and the Bullet Farm.

This genre is certainly not everybody’s cup of tea. It is a mixture: post-apocalyptic Cirque de Soleil, Heavy-Metal music video, hardcore slice and dice. The world of this film was consistent, visually phenomenal and very entertaining. It was a very good film. The story itself had many layers including girl-power.

I wanted to check it out again, so I waited for the DVD to come out.

In Hit Fix, Charlize Theron says she’s affected by teenage girls love of Furiosa in ‘Fury Road’ which still elicits passionate responses from fans, media and the director’s peers in the movie industry three months after its release.

One of the most talked about aspects of the film isn’t Max himself (sorry Tom Hardy), but Theron’s raw performance as Furiosa. The character has inspired many women (including a large contingent of teenage girls) and handicapped viewers as well.

Theron says, “I think what has really affected me is the word of mouth what you hear from people, especially people with young girls,” It’s really overwhelming and just really nice and really nice when you can have your work translate into that matter.

I keep thinking that Furiosa is the evolution of the type of character played by Linda Hamilton [Sarah Connor] in the Terminator movies [Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)]. Hamilton’s buff arms were a symbol of strength and determination and will. They were revolutionary. Furiosa’s lack of an arm speaks to the same thing. You know, I taught a film course once upon a time, and I would really have used this film to show how certain female characters evolve – I would.

Our lead female character, Furiosa, is a disabled warrior. She has a major ‘flirtation’ with Max. She is represented as desirable and sexy despite her disability. How friggin’ cool is that?

Theron is rumored to be returning as Furiosa in “Mad Max: The Wasteland.” In the meantime, she’s wrapped Sean Penn’s “The Last Face” with Javier Bardem and reprises her role as Ravenna in “The Huntsman” opposite Chris Hemsworth and Emily Blunt.

Tom Hardy as ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky says; “It was daunting [and] a bit intimidating to step into an iconic character’s role and shoes,” Hardy admitted to ET Online.

When the first Mad Max hit theaters in 1979, it was a fresh-faced Mel Gibson who embodied the post-apocalyptic badass. Gibson would go on to reprise the role in ’81 and ’85 for the film’s sequels, Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome.

Hardy says; “Mel is iconic. And he’s Max, and that’s it, I won’t argue with that, that’s brilliant,” Hardy added. “But on this outing, George has had 30-something years worth of reinvestment in a world that he created. And he asked me to come along and play his Max for him. And I’m not gonna say no, am I?”

Anyhoo, the wives were eye-candy rebels. It is one thing to be labeled a ‘breeder’ and another to own one’s choice to breed. I love the idea of being very sexy and determining when to have sex.

The film had no gay characters or people of colour. Aside from some homo-erotic moments between some males, the relationships were of a heterosexual nature. The film did not break any sexuality rules, which, in my opinion, would have been very revolutionary.

This world is white. Rate Your Music says, [In] the history of heavy metal – white people playing angry music … there’s mostly white male listeners. Don’t get me started…

The film was directed and created by George Miller. The Los Angeles Daily Newssays; When the 70-year-old made the first movie in 1979, he just wanted to make a car-chase film. B-movie fast car/crazy crash-centric movies were fairly common in the late 1970s, including the dystopian future of “Death Race 2000” made in 1975.

“The Japanese saw [the original “Mad Max”] as a samurai film. The French thought of it as a Western on wheels,” says Miller. So when he made “The Road Warrior” in 1981, the apocalyptic world he created “was much more deliberate, more explicit. It was about the oil crisis and wars.”

Since then, the filmmaker has seen “Mad Max” elements in music videos, video games, manga and animation, and, of course, other movies. Coming back to the story — “I was reluctant to let it go” — Miller has been able to go further both in the story and technically.

This film is worth seeing and contained by a specific aesthetic. It is stylish and does not deviate from stereotypes of sexuality or colour. Empowered women and minorities though, rock my world.

ABOUT: The Age of Adaline (also known as simply Adaline) is a 2015 American epic romance fantasy film directed by Lee Toland Krieger and written by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvdor Paskowitz. The film stars Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Kathy Baker, Amanda Crew, Harrison Ford, and Ellen Burstyn.

Synopsis: Adaline [Blake Lively] is a beautiful young woman who suffers an accident that changes her life forever. She has remained 29 years old for nearly 8 decades. She lives her life running away, not letting anyone get too close to her or know her secret, not letting herself fall in love.

The Guardiancomments, Age of Adaline… you should know: this is Harrison Ford’s best performance in 22 years. You have to go all the way back to The Fugitive to find a film that made better use of one of cinema’s bigger icons. That really wasn’t what I was expecting when I went into this mid-budget, gushy fantasy-romance flick. Vulture says, Ford is better than he’s been in ages, and it’s nice to have him back; it’s nice to see him smile again.

Vanity Faircomments, Huisman doesn’t really register beyond being a handsome plot device, but Ford, so improbably turning up in this movie at all, does some of the best work we’ve seen from him in a long while. He approaches his emotional scenes with a rigor usually reserved for his physical acting.

Actually, Harrison Ford was so much better than the rest of the cast, which shows us that really good acting can help a film. I mean the film was sweet, straightforward and nice. The voice-over made me want to strangle someone but apart from that, no violence here. If the film was innovative in any way, I might have liked it. It wasn’t horrible – just bland. Ford had a gravitas and sincerity about him. He was textured and layered. His subtleties revealed so much about his character. Really excellent performance.

Pop Sugarsays; Harrison Ford plays an old friend of Adaline’s, and when we flash back to the younger version of his character, William, meeting Adaline, you’ll swear it’s really Harrison Ford 40 years ago. But it’s not — it’s up-and-coming star Anthony Ingruber, who looks and sounds so much like Ford it’s mind-boggling. Turns out, Ingruber has been doing impressions of celebrities on YouTube for years, not limited to just Ford.

The L.A. Times says, Lively has not always received positive notices for her acting. “Gossip Girl” wasn’t exactly a critical darling, and some of the movies she’s been best in — small indies like “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” and “Hick” — weren’t widely seen. But she would like to be taken seriously as an actress — an ambition that became clear with her small role as a Boston hooker opposite Ben Affleck in 2010’s “The Town.”

Unfortunately, I cannot imagine that this film will help her image. She lacked depth, complexity and nuance in this film. After noting Ford’s exquisite performance I kept thinking that another actress might have been a wiser casting choice. Lively is nice to look at but lacks acting chops.

Director Lee Toland Krieger, whose previous films The Vicious Kind and Celeste & Jesse Forever displayed both an elegant sense of atmosphere and focused performances, has fun jumping among the decades, and he does a solid job keeping the tone just playful enough that we don’t ask too many questions of the silly premise.

Collidersays about director Lee Toland Krieg; There’s a determined quality to the shot selection, an almost arm’s length remove to the emotional beats of the picture that lends itself to combating its more saccharine impulses.

Yes, the shots are very clean and standard. They mirror the film…very straightforward, nothing controversial or different. While the premise of the film is interesting – no aging – the film itself is not unique at all. The premise of ‘no aging’ is familiar and popular in Vampire and Zombie flicks. There is certainly a precedent for this premise, which is manifest well or not.

I might have wanted an edgier film. Lose the voice over. Show, don’t tell. Make alternate casting choices. See this film if you do not want to be challenged. Actually, you might want to check out Harrison Ford.

The film is based on the true story of the late Maria Altmann, an elderly Holocaust survivor living in Los Angeles who, together with her young lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg, fought the government of Austria for almost a decade to reclaim Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting of her aunt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which was confiscated from her relatives by the Nazis in Vienna just prior to World War II. Altmann took her legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in her favor in Republic of Austria v. Altmann (2004).

The film was screened in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

It is extremely important that we have this film. Sure the story has been told but really, not many people know it. Did you know that over 100,000 pieces of Art stolen by the Nazis still have not been returned to their current owners? I did not and I consider myself well informed. Is this a cinematic masterpiece? Hardly, but like some songs you don’t need to embellish the tune with vibrato – a pure, clean voice works best. The story here is intense and frankly, I do not believe that more drama would add to it.

Yes, the screenplay was somewhat weak but when you have Helen Mirren in the lead role the priority becomes her performance and she is brilliant. “The Oscar winner plays Maria, an unlikely hero who battled to recover her family’s Klimt painting after it was stolen by the Nazis.”

Daily Mail UK says, A decade ago, Maria Altmann drew international attention when she successfully sued the Austrian government to reclaim five family paintings that were stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

And her triumphant story has now been given the big screen treatment, with Dame Helen Mirren portraying her, alongside Ryan Reynolds, who plays her attorney E. Randol Schoenberg.

Plot: In the late 1990s, Maria Altmann (Mirren) runs a dress shop in Los Angeles. Sixty years earlier she fled her native Austria to escape Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Now in her 80s, and upon the death of her sister, she hopes to wrest some of her family’s treasured paintings — including Gustav Klimt’s 1907, ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,’ also known as “Woman in Gold” — from an Austrian government that holds the works and won’t relinquish them. The Austrians revere the painting as “the Mona Lisa of Austria,” but to Maria it is a picture of the beautiful aunt she loved and lost. She retains a young lawyer, Randol Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), in the seemingly chimerical pursuit of recovering her family trove. If they succeed, any number of other masterpieces might legally be returned to the heirs of their rightful owners.

The UK Mirrorwrites, Dame Helen Mirren, 69, says: “It was justice. The Austrian government didn’t want to give them back. Hopefully it will show people you can fight against the odds and sometimes, occasionally, brilliantly, miraculously win.”

The Austrian government fought tooth and nail to keep the paintings, especially the Woman In Gold, which had become known as the Austrian Mona Lisa. ­

Viennese lawyers did everything in their power to show Maria had no legal claim to their family treasures.

And Maria noted at the time: “They will delay, delay, delay, hoping I will die. But I will do them the pleasure of staying alive.”

Historical detail is important here and often what may seem fantastical simply is not. The director, Simon Curtis says; my family were all safely in the UK before WWII, so I don’t have a Holocaust story. But I feel culturally Jewish, and definitely identify with all of that… There’s a tension between authenticity … though what is authenticity? You just do your best. You research as much as possible.

And in the case of this film, when the Nazi cars come in, we recreated an actual shot — when the Jews are painting on the wall — that was an actual photograph that you can find when you Google it, that we recreated.

Ryan Reynolds plays lawyer Randol Schoenberg. They met in L.A. one day when Schoenberg visited the set. “I was dressed in khakis and a long sleeve shirt, and he walked over and looked at me and was wearing the exact same outfit. He said, ‘Nailed it! They dressed me as you.’”

Reynolds is a weak actor but here he plays Schoenberg sympathetically. There are no nuances or layers but the story is not his and although Schoenberg was instrumental in getting the painting back, he is kind of a footnote [sorry] to the bigger picture.

In Rotten Tomatoes Allan Hunter says, ‘The film is forgivably simplistic and sentimental but also stirring when it reminds us once again of the countless injustices from the Nazi era that can never be made right or forgotten.’ I would agree. I think that the story here is what counts most.

ABOUT: Into the Woodsis a 2014 American musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is directed by Rob Marshall, and adapted to the screen by James Lapine from his and Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award–winning Broadway musical of the same name. It features an ensemble cast that includes Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, Mackenzie Mauzy, Billy Magnussen, and Johnny Depp. Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ ‘Cinderella,’ ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ and ‘Rapunzel,’ the film is a fantasy genre crossover centered on a childless couple, who set out to end a curse placed on them by a vengeful witch.

PLOT: Set in an alternate world of various Grimm fairy tales, the film intertwines the plots of several Grimm fairy tales and follows them to explore the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. The main characters are taken from of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ ‘Cinderella,’ ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ and ‘Rapunzel,’ as well as several others. When a Baker and his Wife learn they’ve been cursed childless by a Witch, they must embark into the woods to find the objects required to break the spell and begin a family. The film is tied together to the original story of the baker and his wife, their interaction with the Witch who has placed a curse on them, and their interaction with other storybook characters during their journey. What begins as a lively irreverent fantasy musical eventually becomes a tale about responsibility, the problems and consequences that come from wishes, and the legacy that we leave our children.

If you are like me, you kind of need to dismiss the absurdity of characters breaking into song and fairytales in general. Any bias I might have is left at the door in favour of a legitimate film review. I take my reviews seriously so I really make an effort not to cloud them. My opinions reflect the universe of the film and if that universe is a musical fairytale mashup – so be it.

Yup. Anna Kendrick is a pop star/actor and Meryl Streep played the lead in the musical-film ‘Mamma Mia.’ Tracey Ullman says, “I know, I was a one hit wonder here in 1984. ‘They don’t know about us, baby.’ We were talking this morning and Anna [Kendrick] went, ‘You really? You had a …’ ‘Yeah. Google me, honey. I was on top of the pops with Boy George and Duran Duran and U2. I was with Stiff Records with Elvis Costello back in my day.’ Yeah, I know. I can carry a tune and I’ve loved singing all the way through my career and in my shows and things.”

There is a huge problem with consistancy though. Given that this is a mashup, I would expect certain anomalies but the inconsistencies are flaws not anomalies. It is fun to see characters from different stories interacting and the emphasis, like the extremely popular animated film ‘Frozen,’ is child empowerment – commendable but unfortunately, I see the flaws.

Bustle.com says; Casting actors who don’t identify as singers in musicals is always a gamble, whether it’s on Broadway or the latest film adaptation. Nobody likes it when talent is traded for name recognition…

Sondheim often writes for actors and actresses who can’t sing as strongly as the big Broadway belters. Sure, The Witch was originally played by powerhouse diva and infamous back-phraser Bernadette Peters…

The acting is what counts, and different characters call for different ranges.

Bustle.com agrees that Johnny Depp is fine as the Big Bad Wolf but his voice is the weakest of the cast. MacKenzie Mauzy plays Rapunzel but her singing is very limited. Christine Baranski as The Wicked Stepmother is fabulous in that role but her singing just isn’t memorable. Tracey Ullman as Jack’s Mother is great and so is her voice.

Anna Kendrick is so wonderful here I almost forgot she was Cinderella [a compliment]. Lilla Crawford plays Little Red Riding Hood. She played Annie on Broadway and although she is talented, she needs to sing in many different roles because she is recreating Annie here. James Corden is a butcher and is very good here. Chris Pine plays the Prince mockingly. I wish the entire cast did this. Meryl Streep as the Witch is better suited to this role than her role in Mama Mia. I do not imagine that she will get any awards here but you never know. Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel’s Prince is better than Chris Pine. Sorry. Emily Blunt as the Butcher’s Wife is good but her aspirations are limited to having a child… Daniel Huddlestone as Jack [and the Beanstock] was amazing.

I am disbelieving that I am going to say that many of the themes here are relevant – especially child empowerment, strong female characters and less than ideal, fairy-tale happy endings… Common Sense Media says,A lascivious wolf preys on a young girl, children lose and are separated from their parents, sympathetic characters die, handsome princes aren’t all they appear to be, and there’s no promise of happy ending for anyone. Mashups are a popular contemporary stylistic device and lately there is a flurry of musical film.

Cinderella sings to Little Red Riding Hood near the end, “Witches can be right/Giants can be good/You decide what’s right/You decide what’s good.” The emphasis is not a black and white definition of certain roles. It would be a mistake to view this film as ‘feminist’ though. It’s absolutely not. Most of the female characters are 1 dimensional and most of the feminine quests involve youth, beauty, marriage, children etc.

I did like this film and would recommend it for children and their parents.